


Alea Iacta Est

by LapsedPacifist



Category: World Trigger
Genre: Angst, Gen, Growing Up, Hurt/Comfort, So much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 10:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10614894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LapsedPacifist/pseuds/LapsedPacifist
Summary: Jin's life has never been just sunshine and rainbows. From his earliest memories to the present, his Side Effect has always been influencing his actions, for better or worse.It's just something he has to live with.He might not be content, but he can at least assure happiness of other people, and in the end, that's what really counts.





	

**Author's Note:**

> hola everyone! Im completely new here, I literally started watching this about a week ago, and finished it in record time. And, of course, developed an unhealthy obsession with Jin.  
> as there obviously isn't enough angst about this precious kid, let me offer you some

He isn’t born with it, so to speak.

It takes several years for his Trion gland to produce enough Trion for it to start affecting his brain, and then it takes several more for it to be affected so much that his Side Effect appears.

But he doesn’t remember the time before, the time without it.

* * *

He’s five when he realizes it’s not normal, it’s not something everyone can do, it’s not _natural._

It happens when his mom breaks her arm.

The legs of the chair she’s standing on while changing a light bulb are uneven, and when she leans on the backrest, it tilts under her weight and falls.

Her arm is all red and swollen, and she has to go to the hospital to get it wrapped up, which means less food that month (not that he cares, really).

And Jin stares at her, when she comes back, her hand in a white bandage, and asks her why she did it.

“But you knew you were gonna fall, mum, so why did you do it?”

She looks at him strangely, and asks: “What do you mean, I knew? I didn’t know, that was the problem.”

She ruffles his hair, as she often does when he asks weird questions, but he doesn’t smile this time.

Instead, he shakes his head: “Didn’t you see it was going to happen?”

“See?” she asks, obviously confused now.

“Yes!” he says, a little angry at her for not understanding: “like, all this stuff happening in front of you, but not _really_ happening? Just maybe? And it’s all because of what you do _now_? And then it might change, if you do something else?”

His explanation is confusing, and at first thinks he is just making everything up. He is only five, really, so it’s not surprising that it takes a lot of time for him to adequately explain what he means.

But it soon starts making sense, and she realizes that her little boy can actually _see the_ _future._

It scares her, really. She doesn’t understand it, not completely, and can not help him in any way. She briefly thinks of getting professional opinion, but that possibility is quickly disregarded. They would either think she is crazy, or take him for experiments, and that is simply not an option.

She doesn’t love him any less, like that even had a possibility of happening, but she is more careful.

At that time, he’s friends with many kids living in the neighborhood, but she doesn’t even think about isolating him.

At least, that’s until the accident.

* * *

After his mum sits him down and explains that not _everyone_ can see the world like he does, and how for most people time is linear and unalterable (he has to read some very thick and complicated books to understand what that word means), he quickly decides to impress his friends with this unusual ability.

“I can see the future,” he exclaims happily.

“Yeah right,” they snort.

He proves it by correctly guessing how the coin will fall, what colour will the next car that drives by be, and what will happen when Nori pulls his sister’s hair again.

They look at him in awe now, and ask him a bunch of questions about their future. Who will end up with, will their parents ever return their TV privileges, will they successfully pass the test, who will win the next basketball game and so on.

He can answer some, some he doesn’t know, and some just have too many different futures to correctly identify the most likely one.

It’s still enough to raise him to a minor celebrity status amidst his friends, and he doesn’t mind that at all.

His mom watches all of this with a small smile, happy that her son is content, but still worried over all the ‘what-ifs’ that could happen.

And they soon do.

He’s only six, just shy of his seventh birthday, when Tamako asks him about her cat.

Tamako is a couple of years younger, a sweet and shy child who loves animals, and especially her white cat Fluffy, as she calls it.

She wants to know something inconsequential, but as she stands in front of her, her small cat in her hands while she lovingly caresses it, the main thing he sees is not whatever she asked him, but something far worse.

There’s an unknown car, speeding down the road, where Fluffy is sunbathing.

It doesn’t see the cat, or maybe it doesn’t care.

The end result is the same.

He takes a step back from Tamako, whose confusion is obvious. Now even other kids are watching them, wondering what is going on.

“Jin?” Tamako says, in her tiny voice, sounding so small and young and _innocent_.

But he’s too young to know when is appropriate to lie and when not, _not yet anyway._

He sniffs, and says: “There is a car and it’s going to pass near here where Fluffy will be and Fluffy won’t see it and she will die!”

That sentence is followed by stunned silence, and then Tamako starts to sniff as well, and somebody says: “Fluffy? Fluffy-chan is going to die?”

“Liar!” cries Tamako. “No, she isn’t! How can you say something like that! You’re evil! No, it isn’t true!”

She runs away with the cat, still crying.

He doesn’t follow her.

Everyone else stares at him, something akin to contempt in their glares, and he turns away and runs home.

* * *

His mum is understanding as always, and she ruffles his hair, and says: “This is just how it is. People don’t like hearing bad news, and they often take out their anger on whoever brought them the news, even when it’s not their fault. Don’t let it bother you, and don’t hold it against Tamako-chan either.”

He nods, and gives her a shy smile, to which she responds with a smile of her own.

Later, they receive a call. It’s Tamako’s mother and she is angry that Jin-kun made up something so awful like that to scare her daughter, and why exactly does Hoshi-san permit her son to make up such extensive lies? Seeing the future? Oh please. What’s next, giant dragons dropping from the sky? Keep him under control, Hoshi-san, look at what he’s doing! My kids actually believe him! How can you allow this?

His mum doesn’t get angry at him. She just sighs, and drops the phone on the desk. “Some people,” she says and mutters something under her breath, too quiet for him to hear.

But he’s quieter from there on, not responding to her questions as enthusiastically as he usually would, and he doesn’t jump in the air from happiness when she presents him a new book about space she got from the library for him.

He just takes it and quietly looks it over on his bed, trying to focus on it and it alone and ignore everything else that doesn’t strictly belong in the present.

* * *

The next day he doesn’t go out to play with others, and his mother is working, so he’s all alone. Which is for the best, as he can avoid seeing any other people, and disregarding his own possible futures is second nature to him now.

He’s focused on his book, reading about distant galaxies, thankful that his foresight doesn’t extend that far, when somebody starts pounding on the door.

He gasps, the most direct future in front of him attaining a dangerous taste, and he scrambles to open the door.

There’s a serious bad feeling about all of this that he can’t get rid of, but he ignores it for now.

In front of him stands Tamako’s father, with a couple of neighbors and also his mum.

Tamako’s father is furious, even red in his face, and his fists are clenched and ready to punch something or somebody. But he doesn’t attract Jin’s gaze. No, it’s his mother.

She’s quietly crying, her long skirt clenched in her fists, and she looks miserable.

He wants to run up to her and hug her, but Tamako’s father gets him faster. He barely sees it in the future, let alone in the present, as the hand descents at him and decks him in the face, sending him to the floor.

He’s badly disoriented at first, from the pain, but he can hear somebody screaming - probably his mum. Then there are other voices, and he’s kicked again.

Then there’s absolute silence for a moment, followed by even more noise and crashes.

He doesn’t understand what’s going on.

* * *

 Their small apartment is completely trashed, and his mum is crying as she gently takes care of his bruised cheek and small cuts on his upper left arm.

She explains to him what happened.

Tamako, distressed at the prospect of losing her dear pet, spend the night crying, with the cat safely in her arms. But come morning, she fell asleep, and the cat slipped outside.

As Tamako woke and discovered that she was alone, she rushed outside in a frantic search, running around the neighborhood, trying to find her cat before it was too late.

She did find it, in the end.

Rushed right onto the street, in front of the speeding car.

They didn’t know if she was going to recover, hell, they didn’t know if she was even going to wake up ever again.

Jin is stunned.

Tamako-chan, the lovely, small and innocent Tamako-chan is going to die because of him? No, not die, just… Never wake up again? Because of what he did? Because of what he _said_?

He never wanted anything like this.

It was too awful to even consider it as a possibility.

His mum hugs him, and rushes to assure him that it isn’t his fault, that it just happened.

They both know she’s lying.

* * *

They have to move afterwards.

They simply cannot stay, with all their neighbors being outright hostile to them, other kids completely avoiding Jin, and their landlord raising their rent impossibly high.

His mum is worried, and trying to hide it from him.

But he sees through her masks easily. She’s worried about finding new jobs, finding a cheap apartment and a school for Jin as he’s already a bit over the age requirement for the first grade.

And she is also worried about future accidents. If something like this ever happened again, it could lead to far worse consequences for Jin, and she cannot bear to see her son hurt.

He also can’t bear to see his mum hurt over his mistakes.

As the train stops at the Mikado City Central Station, the city that will soon become their new home, and she squeezes his hand in assurance, he gives her his most radiant smile and a promise of a bright future as far as he can see.

At least, that’s what he says about it.

She has an annoying suspicion that he’s lying.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not from Japan and don't speak the language, so if I got any honorifics or names wrong, please correct me!  
> Still, I hope you enjoyed this :)  
> there's (probably) more to come


End file.
